Michael Bender is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Mercury Policy Project, which is a small, national nonprofit effort dedicated to the significant reductions in human and wildlife exposures to mercury and the virtual elimination of mercury emissions from anthropogenic sources. Michael has participated in numerous mercury study committees and was appointed by Chief Homer St.Francis to represent the Abenaki on the Vermont Advisory Committee on Mercury Pollution.

Michael has over 10 years experience in the municipal hazardous waste management field and has focused on mercury policy issues for the past several years. He is a founder of the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association and has served as the technical advisor for the national hazardous materials management conference on household, small business and universal waste since 1993. From 1995 to 1997, Michael worked collaboratively with Vermont legislators, Members of Congress and their staffs, government and nongovernment officials and businesses in pressuring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Clinton Administration to release the long-delayed Mercury Study Report to Congress in December 1997.

Michael has also worked extensively to reduce and eliminate mercury uses and emissions, with a focus on keeping mercury-containing products out of municipal waste streams. He has provided input into the development of the Federal Universal Waste Rule and the Mercury-Containing Lamps Rule, the New

England States/Eastern Canadian Provinces Mercury Action Plan, the North American Regional Action Plan on Mercury and the Agency for Toxics Substances and Disease Registry's mercury reference level (MRL). In addition, he has co-authored several reports on mercury, including a commentary piece ("A Real Plan of Action on Mercury") for the September/October 1999 issue of Public Health Reports and presented information to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Toxicological Effects of Mercury during their October 4, 1999 meeting in Washington, DC.

Michael has a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and a Masters of Science in Resource Management and Administration from Antioch New England in Keene, New Hampshire.

The Mercury Policy Project website can be accessed at: www.mercurypolicy.org

Michael can be contacted via email at: MTBenderVT@aol.com